Last week, colleague and attorney extraordinaire Nathaniel Grow sent me an article — specifically, an Accounting Today piece by Michael Cohn — regarding potential changes to major-league baseball trades as a result of the recent tax reform law. I decided, using that piece as a start, to determine what impact the legislation would have on MLB teams generally, if any at all.

As it turns out, the new law does impact them. A lot.

Let’s begin with some background. What we colloquially refer to as the “tax reform law” is actually more properly called by its title, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The law made sweeping changes both to individual and corporate tax rates and regulations. Most of it is outside the scope of our concern here. It’s essential to remember, however, that baseball teams are all businesses. There are, of course, different types of business ownership structures — some are corporations, some are partnerships, some are limited liability companies — but the underlying point is that they are all business entities of some sort or other. And so the changes in the tax code impact how every team operates.

Now, a fair warning: this involves a discussion of tax law, which isn’t famous for producing scintillating content. Also note that what follows represents a gross oversimplification for purposes of brevity. In other words, don’t go doing your taxes based on the information provided here.

Ready? Let’s go.

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At least 236 major-league players will earn more than Neil Walker in 2018.

Among second basemen alone, 18 are expected to receive something better than the $4 million the New York Yankees guaranteed to pay Walker, who remained available into the middle of March.

Walker has produced seven straight seasons of at least two wins. He ranks 61st amongst position players in WAR (11.7) since the start of the 2014 season. He was ranked by former FanGraphs manager editor Dave Cameron as 11th-best free agent available this winter.

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The A’s are signing Jonathan Lucroy for one year and $6.5 million. Why are they doing that? Because Lucroy has been good before, and, other than Lucroy, the A’s catchers are Bruce Maxwell, Josh Phegley, and Dustin Garneau. It’s not so much that Lucroy is sure to be a massive improvement. But, he ought to help, and the A’s had some money to move, and this season, the A’s also happen to look like a half-decent wild-card contender. Everything makes sense. This move was almost painfully obvious.

Of course, in order for this move to go down, Lucroy had to accept. You know how free agency works. And the A’s have had some problems here, in terms of getting players to take their money. Sure, the A’s have run low payrolls in large part because they’ve intended for payroll to be low, but they’ve also often been turned down, even when they’ve had the high offer. This offseason, for example, the A’s offered the biggest contract to Brian Duensing, who re-signed with the Cubs. Maybe Lucroy is fond of the A’s. Maybe he’s excited to go there. But, it’s the middle of spring training. The market decided Lucroy wasn’t worth being enthusiastic about. The A’s came calling with a job.

As I write this, Lucroy is 31 years old. Not even very long ago, he was considered one of baseball’s best catchers. How did his free agency end up in this place? Lucroy, like Carlos Gonzalez, is coming off a bad season. And it’s not at all clear what anyone should make of him at this point. What skills he still has are fair to question.

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Back on the other side of the weekend, word got out the Rockies were re-signing Carlos Gonzalez for a year and $8 million. In one way, it’s great news, because now Gonzalez has a job. Furthermore, Nolan Arenado said bringing Gonzalez back “would be the greatest thing ever.” So, from the Rockies’ standpoint, and also from Gonzalez’s standpoint, it’s terrific to preserve some familiarity. In another way, this is disappointing news. It’s disappointing to Gonzalez, because a year ago, he turned down what would’ve been a lucrative three-year extension. And it’s disappointing to some fans, who now wonder what to make of the Rockies’ outfield picture. There are some younger players who are knocking on the door.

When I chatted last Friday, I received several inquiries related to Raimel Tapia, David Dahl, and Mike Tauchman. There’s an argument to be made that all of them are major-league ready. Gonzalez now gets in the way, because he’s not re-signing to platoon, or to sit on the bench. Gonzalez is going to play, and that playing time comes at the expense of other Rockies. What I would say is not to worry too much. Gonzalez now occupies a spot in a nine-man lineup, but I see this more as helping the depth. There’s value in having moving pieces.

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Because his high school is only about 40 minutes away via the 101 Loop in Arizona, I am going to see an awful lot of LHP Matthew Liberatore this spring. At the second of two fairly disparate starts from the senior, several teams picking in the top ten had a little extra heat in attendance to observe him. Indeed, after Liberatore sat 93-97 in his first start, there’s been some admittedly premature discussion about how high he might go in the draft. But now that we have a few appearances worth of information this spring, it’s reasonable to begin considering where he might go in June. We can do that by ignoring the other prospects in this year’s draft class and instead comparing Libby to other recent prep lefties.

This style of temperature check is useful for a few reasons. At some point, we have to line up every prospect in this year’s draft class, but it’s hard to do that with precision right now because evaluations are constantly shifting and we don’t know everything about things like signability or injuries. By comparing a current prospect — in this case, Liberatore — to his peers in previous draft classes, we’re now only dealing with one moving target and can more easily get an idea of where he’s likely to be selected.

There are several factors besides mere talent that influence where a player is selected in the draft — especially early in a draft — and, of course, the quality of talent in a given class is also relevant. We can’t control for that stuff and probably don’t need to because, again, we’re just trying to get a feel for a realistic range of potential outcomes.

With that in mind, here are the draft-day evaluations of the high-school lefties who have been taken in the first round since 2014. I have them listed in order of preference based on talent at the time they were drafted, with other factors (size, makeup, delivery) noted. The “x” indicates that attribute was essentially value neutral, or at least not so impactful that it affected the player’s stock. These were all future, not current, pitch projections, and if a kid had two breaking balls I just picked the better of the two.

So where does Matthew Liberatore stack among this group? Last week, he was up to 94, sitting mostly 91-92 for most of his start, with a fairly upright delivery that I think negatively impacts extension. His slowest fastball was at 88; it came from the stretch late in his start. Liberatore’s curveball flashed plus several times. It’s fair to question if a 70-72 mph curveball will be effective in the big leagues, but there’s remarkable feel for spin here and it’s likely Liberatore’s breaking ball will have more power to it at maturity. He flashed an above-average changeup, which projects to plus at peak as he utilizes it more in pro ball.

From a strike-throwing and consistency perspective, Liberatore was disappointing. He failed to get on top of many fastballs and breaking balls, forcing a number of pitches to sail up and to his arm side. The quality of his stuff was also inconsistent throughout much of his outing. He’s a good athlete for his size and has some room on his frame for more mass, so it’s possible more velocity is coming. As the spring rolls on, this evaluation is likely to change a little but, but right now here’s where we think Liberatore is at.

Groome and Allard probably go higher in their respective drafts if not for off-field and injury issues, respectively. I think it’s fair to place Liberatore in the picks No. 3 to 7 range right now, just based on how his talent stacks up with recent precedent. A lot can still happen between now and the draft to change this. If his velocity ticks comfortably into the mid-90s as the draft approaches, we’re talking about something closer to Gore than to Garrett. We can use similar methodology (especially during the summer prior to a draft) across a draft class to loosely tier players, while being mindful of changing industry norms. As the draft approaches, though, it’s necessary to polish up the order within a given tier or move players around because of makeup, medicals, and other considerations.

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GOODYEAR, Ariz. — Right before the start of spring training, Cincinnati prospect Nick Senzel received a phone call at his home in Knoxville, Tenn. It was from Reds headquarters. The club had a question for its top rookie-eligible player: could he handle shortstop?

“I said, ‘Yeah,’” Senzel told FanGraphs recently in Arizona. “And they got me there now.”

Even before taking the call, the No. 2 pick of the 2016 June draft was taking ground balls at third, second, and shortstop — and even fly balls in the outfield — on the playing surface of Lindsey Nelson Stadium, the baseball home of his alma mater, the University of Tennessee. A third baseman in college, Senzel wanted to make himself as versatile as possible entering this season.

It was prescient planning, as the Reds have since begun one of the great experiments of the spring.

As players advance through professional baseball, as they age at the major-league level, they typically move down the defensive spectrum. What is so interesting about Senzel playing shortstop, even if it’s short-lived, is that it represntns a case of a player moving up the spectrum.

There is an argument to be made that more teams should be identifying players who can move to more challenging positions. Why? Because over the last decade, about 20% of defensive opportunities — as in batted balls in play — have evaporated. In this three-true-outcomes environment, it’s easier to hide a bat, to trade some glove for bat, when the ball is less of a threat to reach the field of play.

There were 60,249 “plays” by defenders in 2007, according to FanGraphs data. Last season, there were just 49,809 — or roughly 10,000 fewer.

Consider opportunity trends by position:

It’s not just Senzel. Paul DeJong, who appeared at a variety of positions during his junior campaign at Illinois State, received over half the Cardinals’ starts at shortstop last season. Lonnie Chisenhall and Jason Kipnis were deployed in center at times in 2017, aided by a staff that recorded the highest strikeout rate of all time. Dee Gordon is transitioning to center field in Seattle.

Could it work? Could teams benefit from more aggressive defensive assignments? Could it be the next big thing? Or at least a little thing at no cost to clubs ever in search of efficiency and hidden value?

***

Senzel believes he can stick at short and has ambitions to make the team as the club’s starter out of spring training, although the realities of how clubs manipulate service time make that all but impossible. Still, Senzel reported early to camp. He’s worked with Barry Larkin. He’s participated every day in a particular drill where rubber balls are thrown off a wall, forcing Senzel to quickly reset his feet and transfer the ball into throwing positions.

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The Minnesota Twins continued a productive offseason over the weekend, signing Lance Lynn to a bargain-rate one-year, $12 million deal. Lynn turned down a $17.4 million qualifying offer from the Cardinals in November. He also reportedly turned down higher guarantees from other teams, per Jon Morosi. 

Not clear regarding those other offers is whether the average annual values of the contracts would have been equivalent or if Lynn would have had to forfeit the opportunity to explore free agency next offseason in exchange for a few extra million dollars. Whatever the case, it appears as though Lance Lynn will have to try his hand at free agency next winter if his ambition is to find a long-term home.

As for the Twins, they get great value on a player seemingly overlooked by the market. Indeed, the club seems to have specialized in this sort of deal over the winter. Heading into the offseason, for example, the crowd believed Addison Reed was in line for $27 million, the third-highest guarantee among relievers behind only the figures estimated for Wade Davis and Greg Holland. Reed ultimately agreed to join the Twins for just $16.75 million in mid-January — or less than the overall deals received by seven other relievers who’d signed at that point in the offseason.

The addition of Logan Morrison represents another instance in which the Twins have taken advantage of a slow market. The crowd expected Morrison to sign for $20 million. At the end of February, however, Derek Falvey et al. signed him for just one-third that amount.

Finally, there’s Lynn. Projected by the crowd to receive $60 million over four seasons, the right-hander settled for 20% of that figure. When the offseason began, it was reasonable to think that the Twins would need to guarantee $107 million to acquire all three players mentioned here. With just $35.25 million, though, the club signed the trio at a rate discounted by 67% from initial estimates.

The Twins’ bargain-shopping was not limited to free agency: the team also took on Jake Odorizzi and his $6.3 million salary in exchange for a prospect of little significance. Odorizzi went to the Twins not because of their willingness to provide Tampa Bay with considerable talent but because they were willing to pay his salary.

There are some logical explanations for the Twins’ apparent good fortune. For example, all the players acquired by the club come with significant question marks, and none are currently projected to provide more than two wins this season. That said, each possesses some kind of upside and a relatively recent track record of success. The combined five wins the club is projected to receive will cost just $33 million in 2018 salaries. Given the recent cost of wins on the free-agent market, the Twins’ efficiency should be lauded. More important than getting a good deal, though, they have also obtained solid major leaguers at areas of need.

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The combination of a Cy Young award, a strong postseason track record, a relatively low total of innings thrown, and a history free of major arm injuries was supposed to carry Jake Arrieta to a nine-figure free-agent deal this winter. Agent Scott Boras was said to eye Justin Verlander‘s $180 million extension and Max Scherzer’s $210 million free-agent contract as ballpark figures for and templates for Arrieta. But in a winter during which the hot stove’s pilot light went out, the 32-year-old righty didn’t come anywhere close to landing such a megadeal. Instead, he settled for a three-year, $75 million contract with the Phillies, albeit one with some bells and whistles that could make it considerably more lucrative.

Via FanRag Sports’ Jon Heyman, Arrieta will make $30 million in 2018 and $25 million in 2019, before having a chance to opt out. If he doesn’t opt out, he’ll make $20 million in 2020. If he does opt out, the team has the option to override that by triggering a two-year extension at a minimum of $20 million per year, with incentives (whose exact parameters are unknown at this writing) based on 2018-19 games started that could take those years to $25 million, and further incentives based on Cy Young finishes that could take them to $30 million. The maximum deal becomes five years and $135 million.

Nobody is going to weep for Arrieta, but based upon the guaranteed money, it does appear that Boras overplayed his hand. In early January, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reported that the Cubs, for whom Arrieta pitched from mid-2013 through 2017, were willing to bring Arrieta back via a four-year deal “for about $110 million,” which represents a higher average annual value ($27.5 million) than he ultimately got, unless one simply assumes he’ll opt out without the Phillies overriding. A month ago, just before they closed a six-year, $126 million deal with Yu Darvish, the Cubs reportedly circled back to Arrieta with a similar offer. As he had done when the team tried to secure him via long-term extensions in 2016 and 2017, Arrieta declined.

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